China’s ambassador to Australia has warned that a decision to ban artificial intelligence app DeepSeek from government systems and devices risks further politicising trade and technology ties.
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Ambassador Xiao Qian’s comments came as a Chinese naval task force continued to skirt Australia’s territorial waters in an apparent plan to circumnavigate the island nation. The warships 10 days ago held live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand.
Writing in The Australian newspaper on March 3, Mr Xiao said the Chinese-developed AI program would “greatly benefit the world in various aspects” and encouraged Australia to work with Beijing to jointly develop new technologies.
“Taking restrictive measures against it under the pretext of ‘security risks’ is an attempt to overstretch the concept of national security and politicise trade and tech issues,” the ambassador said in his article.
In early February, Australia’s center-left Labour government became one of the first countries in the world to ban DeepSeek from official devices, a decision that it justified on national security grounds.
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This is stupid. All AI is banned for government work. Even chatgpt. Has been for a long time. Only thing allowed is office 365 copilot and you need to ask IT for special permission to turn it on.